What Is a Memecoin? Meaning in Crypto
Memecoin: A memecoin is a crypto token built around a joke, meme, mascot or trend, whose price depends almost only on attention and community hype rather than on a product or cash flow.
Key takeaways
- A memecoin is a crypto token built around a meme, joke or trend; its price depends on attention, not on a product or revenue.
- Dogecoin, created in 2013, is usually called the first memecoin; today most new memecoins launch on Solana launchpads like pump.fun.
- Most memecoins lose almost all of their value: on pump.fun, the share of coins that complete the bonding curve was between 2.5% and 6.7% in July 2026.
A memecoin is a crypto token built around a meme, a joke or a trend. It has no product or revenue behind it, so its price depends almost only on attention and hype. That makes memecoins fast to rise and, much more often, fast to fall.
How memecoins work
CoinGecko describes meme coins as projects "built around joke concepts" and calls Dogecoin, created in 2013, the original one (CoinGecko). Today most new memecoins launch on Solana. On pump.fun, anyone can create a coin in a few clicks. The coin first trades on a bonding curve. If enough people buy, it graduates to a normal liquidity pool.
Example: a creator launches a coin named after a viral cat video. Traders buy in the first minutes, the market cap climbs, and the coin trends on X. When the early buyers sell, the price can fall 80% or more in an hour.
Why it matters for traders
Most memecoins do not survive. The Block reported a pump.fun graduation rate of 2.5% in one week of July 2026 and 6.7% on its best day (The Block). Many of the rest are abandoned or rugged. Before you buy, read our rug pull guide and how to buy memecoins step by step.